Autumn (Chapter 26) (Patreon)

Like the season that shared her name, Autumn had a peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and flavor and sensuality. She could draw from any poet, some failed attempt at description, or some lines of feeling that could never do her justice.

Kegan slid open the back door of the house and stepped outside. With a bottle of Howards Blend stout in hand, he zipped up his jacket. “Damn, fall is definitely in the air.”

Mike closed the lid of his Weber gas grill and turned towards him. “Yep, days are getting shorter. You cold?”

It was an early October Saturday evening and the smoky forest fire atmosphere of an indian summer had finally changed to the crisp clean air one expects of the fall season along with the turning colors of the Pacific Northwest foliage. Kegan and Sydney had come over to Mike and Autumn’s house for a night of barbecuing and board games, which was a routine fast becoming a monthly tradition.

“Nah I’m good,” Kegan said after a sip of beer. “Just seems like it was only a week ago when it was too hot to sleep.”

Mike removed the THC vape pen from his coat pocket and took a few puffs. “Time goes faster, the older you get.”

Kegan sat down in one of the white plastic chairs that surrounded the outdoor coffee table. He stared down at the cement pavers for a moment then took another swig of his local micro-brew. “That is so true. Sometimes I’m shocked when I look at my girlfriend and she’s like a hundred pounds fatter than when I met her, then I realize that was like over two years ago.”

Mike turned toward him with an eyebrow raised. “Don’t you mean fiancée?”

“Right that’s what I meant.”

Mike leaned against a wooden post that helped support the gazebo style awning that covered the patio. “Are you nervous about getting married?”

“Maybe a little. Were you?”

Mike tilted his head and almost laughed. “I was fucking terrified bro. Had to kinda like…turn my brain off and just do it before I lost my nerve. The idea of me being responsible for another person’s happiness, or the idea of just committing to one woman for the rest of my life was always scary for me.

Kegan sat up straight. “Really, even with Autumn?” He immediately felt silly for mentioning his friend’s wife. He was madly in love with Sydney, but he thought Autumn was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and he couldn’t imagine anyone having second thoughts about marrying her. “Sorry man I didn’t mean it like that, I’m just surprised. You guys are pretty much our inspiration. You two are exactly the kind of couple we would like to be.”

Mike gave him a sly smirk. “Why is that?”

“A lot of reasons,” Kegan said, his knee bouncing with anxious energy. “But I mean you know…what we were talking about a couple weeks ago.”

Mike gazed into the window of the house then back at Kegan. “You mean the weight gain.” He took a step closer. “It’s okay, like I said before, we’re totally comfortable with it, you can talk about it if you want. No point in dancing around the obvious, we get enough of that at family gatherings.”

Kegan’s knee became still. “Same here by the way. I mean it’s fair game, no offense will be taken on our end either. It's just that you’re like the only guy I can actually talk about this stuff with in person, you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

Kegan took another pull from his beer with a quick tilt of his hand. “How did you do it?”

“How did I do it?”

“Yeah.” Kegan stood up and lowered his voice. “Like how did you get her to gain all that weight without her getting freaked out and stuff?”

“Is Sydney getting freaked out?”

“Yeah. I mean she does sometimes but not all the time.”

“That’s normal, and it's inevitable,” Mike said after a long slow drag from his weed pen. He smiled. “If I had a nickel for every time Autumn vowed to lose weight and then changed her mind, I’d be a…I’d have a lot of nickels.”

Kegan sat back down in his chair and drained the remaining contents of his beverage. “How do you deal with it though?”

Mike stared at him for a moment. Kegan was a good looking kid, lean and athletic with scraggly brown hair half covered in a beanie, sparse tattoos and a coffee shop beard. He was 4 years younger, and there was a sweetness about him that was hard not to like, and in him Mike saw perhaps a more innocent version of himself. He also saw that all too familiar look in his eyes, like he had the weight of the entire world resting on his shoulders.

“I was gonna have a cigar,” Mike said, “You want one?”

“Uh, yeah sure.”

Mike stepped forward and took the empty bottle from Kegan’s hand. “Another beer?”

Kegan smiled. “Why not?”

“I’ll be right back, sit tight.”

He returned moments later through the sliding door with a couple of stogies in his hand and a beer and a Rockstar energy drink tucked beneath his arm. He set the drinks down on the table then handed Kegan a cigar.

Kegan brought it to his nose. “Damn, it smells like shit.”

Mike dug in his pocket and handed him a stainless steel guillotine cutter and a tiny butane torch. “That’s how you know it's good.”

After lighting up and filling the brisk night air with rich creamy smoke Kegan said, “How are the girls doing in there?”

Mike finished firing up his own stogy. “It’s funny seeing them both on that big new sofa together, they make that thing look like a tiny loveseat.” He went to check on the racks of baby back ribs that were slow cooking on the grill. “But they’re having a good time, eating cheesecake and chatting up a storm, watching one of those bachelorette type shows I think.”

Kegan carefully set his cigar on the glass ashtray in front of him. “Ah son of a bitch, they turned the game off already?” He reached in his pocket and popped the cap off his beer with a bottle opener that was attached to his keychain. “The last thing Syd needs is more wedding ideas.”

Mike closed the grill then sat down in the chair across from Kegan. He cracked open his Rockstar and took a sip. “So what are you worried about exactly? Like give me an example of a time when Sydney freaked out about her weight.”

“When she hit 400.”

Mike leaned backward. “Did she hit 400?”

“Chyea, a few months ago. Can’t you tell?”

Mike put his Red Wing boots up on the low table and took a couple of puffs on his cigar. “I don’t know…once they get to a certain size it’s like, they’re just fat you know?”

“Yeah but I think after 400, there’s a big difference in mobility and stuff.” His expression turned somber. “Sydney’s really slowed down a lot this year.”

“So what happened, were you doing a weigh-in or something?”

“It was a doctor’s check up.”

Mike leaned forward and put his boots back on the ground. “Fuck, that’s the worst.”

“I know and it’s so confusing,” Kegan said. “One minute I’m like feeding her in bed and she’s being all sexy and telling me how she can’t wait to get fatter, and then the next minute she’s getting hysterical over not being able to find clothes that fit and shit. When she found out she was over 400, she blamed me. I felt sick about it for weeks.” He paused and took a sip of beer, looking slightly ashamed, as if he had shared too much. He cleared his throat. “It's amazing how their emotions become your emotions, or is that just me being too sensitive?”

Mike shook his head. “No you’re not being too sensitive. You’re in touch with her feelings and I think you need to be like that in order to survive in any relationship. But girls are tricky. They’re delicate and beautiful right? And like anything that’s delicate and beautiful, you need to proceed with caution, and handle it with care.”

Kegan set his beer on the table. He leaned towards Mike and began speaking in a sort of loud whisper. “I just get too fucking excited and it makes me all crazy and impatient. I don’t know why I can’t just be thankful. Seriously man, never in a million years did I ever think she would actually get this big.”

“That’s the rub right there, what do you call it, it’s like a paradox.” Mike puffed on his cigar several times then smiled. “The fatter she gets the more dependent on you she feels, the more tied to you she feels and that can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how safe and secure you make her feel in the relationship.” He leaned forward. “It’s complicated cause it’s like, I think when girls gain weight, they can either feel…deliciously feminine and sexy, or they can feel just frumpy and out of shape, right?”

“Right,” Kegan said, hanging on Mike’s every word like he was some world renowned marriage counselor.

“But so much of how they feel and how they view themselves has to do with the way you treat them,” Mike said. “When they’re in a relationship at least… it’s different when they’re single but you know what I mean.” He took a big swig of his drink. “It goes both ways right? You feel a certain confidence because you know that she loves you and believes in you.”

“So you’re saying things get easier after you get married?”

Mike put his drink down and nodded. “Things get a lot easier, because then you’ve proven you’re committed to her, and she feels totally safe with you and she’ll relax and get more comfortable.” He took a short puff on his cigar and let the smoke slowly dissipate from his mouth in a milky haze. He looked at Kegan and smiled. “Remember how like when you were single it seemed like the hottest women you’d meet were always married?”

Kegan shrugged. “Yeah because the hot ones don’t stay on the market long.”

“Is that really the reason though? I think it has more to do with what I’m saying. They get married, they blossom and gain weight, they fill out, get curvier, sexier and more beautiful all because they know they’re now safe. They know someone worships the ground they walk on at home and they carry themselves that way.” He turned towards the sliding glass door then looked back at Kegan. “Girls that feel safe don’t go on crash diets, or hire personal trainers, they spend time with their husbands.” He reached in his pocket and took a quick drag from his vape pen while holding his cigar in his other hand. “I don’t know I might be full of shit.”

Kegan shook his head. “No man that makes so much sense it kinda blows my mind.” He took a drink. “So that’s how you did it with Autumn?”

“With her I was just true to myself, true to my heart and I treated her with respect and she demanded nothing less.”

Kegan went silent for a moment then he cleared his throat nervously. “She um, wasn’t even fat when you met her right? Did you like…did she want to gain weight or something…or I guess I’m just curious how it actually happened if you don’t mind me asking.”

Mike let out a deep sigh. “It happened with baby steps. One day at a time, one pound at a time just like anything else. She had gained some weight right before we started dating, then you know with a little wining and dining, she put on a few more pounds.”

Kegan brought his stogy to his mouth then coughed. “Was she like upset about it?”

“I think a little at first, but she was always pretty unapologetic about her body. Thing was, I just fucking loved the way the extra weight looked on her so much that she started to like it too. Unless I just unleashed something in her that was already there.”

“Fuckin a, that’s the best.”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. What can I say girls like to eat. Maybe they just need to know it’s okay or something.” He gazed into the back yard for a moment, noticing the quiet stillness of the night sky. He took a long drag of his dank, hand rolled corona and looked at Kegan. “Anyway that was all good, but there was a limit to it because she was starting to get back into working out after hitting 180 pounds or so, and she thought that was too much weight for her.” He leaned backward and let out a short chuckle of astonishment. “Holy shit I forgot about that.”

“Things change man.” Kegan took a sip of beer. “So, wait, then what happened after that? How’d you get over that hurdle?”

Mike laughed. “Then covid happened and all the gyms closed.”

“Oh shit!”

“Maybe it was fate,” Mike said with a smile. He paused and peered downward for a moment as a gray ribbon of smoke lingered around his head like a halo. He looked at Kegan. “That’s when it truly started I guess. And you know…we were getting more and more comfortable with each other. I think the pandemic made us get really close, more adventurous in the bedroom, more willing to express what we wanted.”

Kegan’s eyes widened. “So that was when she started to get fat?”

“Well yeah, you remember it was shelter-in-place,” Mike said. “Seemed like every girl I knew gained weight during that time, and with Autumn just sitting on her butt all day, and me being me…she ended up gaining a lot, and it sort of snowballed from there.”

“Past the point of no return.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“But she was okay with it? Like what was she thinking?”

Mike gave him a crooked smile. “Just because I’m married doesn’t mean I understand how women think. I’m still not exactly sure how she feels about her weight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, like a lot of the time I get the feeling that deep down, maybe she wants to lose weight. I remember after she hit 300 pounds, she got all uptight and told me she wanted to get back down into the 280’s because she was starting to get winded just from walking around the house and stuff.” He puffed on his cigar and sighed.

“But she must like it. Sydney always goes on and on about how cool and confident Autumn is.”

“When she loves it, she loves it, but when she doesn’t, she doesn’t. It depends what kind of mood she’s in, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah I get it. Has she tried to lose weight recently?”

“It’s hard to tell, I don't know if she can at this point. She keeps talking about wanting to get healthier but I’m always finding secret candy wrappers and empty fast food bags and pizza boxes in the trash and in the car and stuff.”

“Do you call her out on it?”

Mike smiled. “Of course not.”

“Did she ever get into gaining on purpose and shit?”

Mike nodded with raised brows. “She did. I still think that was the main reason why she blew up so much. If she didn’t really enjoy it herself, and didn’t go through that whole gaining on purpose period…” He looked at his cigar and the way it was slowly burning towards its band of red and gold foil, brightly shimmering beneath the soft overhead lights. “She still would’ve gained, but it would have been much more gradual and I’m sure she would have leveled off or hit a plateau somewhere in the 200 range or something.” He took a drag and released a perfect smoke ring from his mouth. “It was never that easy or simple though. Since the beginning it was more like a rollercoaster of mixed emotions, for both of us really.”

“How so?”

“Sometimes she was really into it, then sometimes she’d have these freak out moments like you were saying with Sydney. Then the next week she’d be really into it again. So much of it though was just that she developed these habits and routines during covid, eating take out everyday, no exercise and you know…10 pounds here, 5 pounds there, it starts to add up pretty quick.” He took a sip of his energy drink then looked Kegan directly in the eye. “I think that for a long time she didn’t realize how big she was actually getting. Not sure if she realizes how big she is now, come to think of it.”

Kegan scooted forward in his seat. “Does she not weigh herself?”

“It's rare these days, she’s sort of against scales, until she’s not.”

“Sydney can be like that too.” Kegan puffed on his stogy, then gave Mike a long stare. “So?”

“What?”

“When was the last time you got her on the scale?”

“Like a year ago. Exactly a year ago actually, October 2023. Shit I guess you don’t forget about these things.”

“Damn, been that long huh?”

“You can’t push it.”

“No you can’t,” Kegan said with a slow shake of his head. “How much was she?”

“Four hundred and forty three pounds.”

“Dayam.” Kegan’s eyes got big and he flicked a good inch of ash into the tray in front of him. “And that was a year ago. How much do you think she is now?”

Mike looked at him, expressionless. “How much do you think?”

After a nip from his beer, Kegan tilted his head towards the ceiling of the open air canopy. “God it feels so weird to be talking about this with you.”

Mike smirked. “We can’t fucking help ourselves can we.”

“No we fucking can’t,” Kegan said chuckling. He paused and his brows tightened. “If she was 443…I’d say that by now she’s probably umm…getting close…”

“Yeah probably. Maybe more.”

Kegan took off his beanie and stood up.“Really? Over 50 pounds in a year?” He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “I can’t even...it’s fucking epic.”

“Is it though? I worry it’s getting to be too much sometimes.”

Kegan sat back down. “Yeah, that’s kind of the dilemma, the elephant in the room.”

“We bought that treadmill to help her stay somewhat healthy and more mobile, but she’s so fat now she can barely use it, can’t even get on it anymore without my help. There’s a lot of times when I feel like I should try and help her lose weight, but then she asks me for a bowl of ice cream and suddenly I’m hard as a fucking rock and powerless to say no. I used to have to really work hard to convince her to eat more, now she’s always hungry and she’ll eat whatever I put in front of her. Sometimes I wonder if she’s lost her mind…and then I think that if she did lose her mind, it’s most definitely my fault.”

“It’s fucked up because that’s part of what makes it so hot.” Kegan leaned back in his chair. “Maybe we’re just a couple of misogynistic assholes.”

“Nah bro we’re not assholes.” Mike smiled then took a long pull from his weed pen and coughed. “My whole life, everything I ever wanted to do was something I wasn’t supposed to do. I wanted to get drunk everyday and try every drug I could find in my early 20’s, but you’re not supposed to do that.” He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “My girlfriend gained weight and instead of being all concerned and distraught like you’re quote-unquote supposed to be, I loved it so much that I encouraged it until I became fucking addicted to it like I get addicted to everything else I like.”

Kegan was surprised. Mike had never been so open and willing to divulge so much personal information with him before.“You’re not the only one man. A beautiful woman who eats a lot and gains weight really is the hottest thing in the world.” He exhaled in awe from the images his own words conjured in his young and lustful brain. “Were you always into thick girls?”

Mike looked at him. “No not really, at least not consciously.” He shrugged. “ I mean we all like a little extra T and A, but I always thought I’d end up with a girl like one of my sister's friends from high school. You know, sophisticated…kinda outdoorsy, pretty, and…thin.” He took a quick breath through his nose, relishing in the decidedly pleasant aroma of peppery tobacco from the cigars and maple bourbon barbecue sauce from the grill. “But what made it so hot was that Autumn was that type of girl. She was like a super hot version of one of my sister’s friends. She was exactly the type of girl everyone probably thought I’d end up with. The only difference is that Autumn gained weight, and just kept on gaining. Honestly, that was what pushed me over the edge and got me to marry her.”

Kegan nodded. “I never thought I would end up with a girl like Sydney. But man, once you get a taste, you can never go back.”

“When did it change for you? Like when did you know you were into…this.”

“I don’t know, early on in the pandemic I was bored out of mind and fucking around a lot on instagram, I umm…stumbled on some plus size models, one thing led to another and I got totally hooked.” He lifted his arms in the air. “Why is it so fucking sexy to see a hot chick gain weight anyway?”

“There’s a lot of reasons, but maybe it’s best not to analyze it, just enjoy it.”

“It’s so hot and it never gets old.”

“I know and it only gets progressively hotter and more exciting.”

“Thank god for you and Autumn man,” Kegan said. “I’m so glad Sydney has a friend like her.”

“I’m glad she has a friend like Syd.”

Kegan got quiet and peered downward. “You know, despite Syd freaking out about 400 pounds, we’ve been umm, we’ve been documenting some of her progress online. She’s been raking in pretty good money too, like quit her job type money.” He looked at Mike and cleared his throat. “Autumn ever think about doing something like that?”

Mike looked at him, stone faced. “No. To each their own but, we can barely go to a grocery store without someone trying to follow us home.”

“Yeah I hear you.” Kegan watched as Mike’s gaze drew towards the bottle in his hand. His eyes were dark like tempered steel, and he had never seen them look so tired or bloodshot before. “How long ago did you quit drinking?”

Mike took another hit from his disposable pen, blowing streams of THC vapors into the cool stagnant air. “Almost ten years.”

“Congratulations.”

Mike held the vape pen up. “Thanks, but now I can’t stop sucking on this thing.”

Kegan sat silent for a moment, looking straight ahead. “I am addicted to watching my girl gain weight.”

Mike’s mouth twisted in amusement as he grabbed his Rockstar. “Me too. Here’s to addiction.”

Their beverages touched and Kegan slurped down the last of his stout. “This all stays, just between you and me right?”

Mike gave him his best Robert DeNiro style nod and said, “What, this thing of ours?” He took a puff on his cigar.“Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.”

Kegan smiled and responded in a Brooklyn accent. “Are you being a fucking wise guy wit me?”